Blog of Stephen Glenn who was Liberal Democrat candidate for Linlithgow and East Falkirk candidate from the 2005 and 2010 Westminster General Elections.
As a fan of Douglas Adams he knows the true meaning of 42. When not blogging and Lib Demming he can be found supporting Livingston Football Club.

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Thursday, October 09, 2008

Andrew Reeves has heard gossip* from the Palace of Westminster that for the Glenrothes by election there are really only three parties in it, Labour, the Lib Dem and the Scottish Conservative and Nationalist Party.

What? You haven't heard of the last one?

Well apparently in the Halls of Westminster, where the winner on November 6th will eventually take up his** seat, Angus Robertson MP and David Mundell MP, leaders of the SNP and Scottish Tory groups of MPs, were overheard plotting how they will work together to ensure an Labour defeat in the Glenrothes By-Election.

So the people of the Glenrothes, Star, Newcastle, Cardenden, Glenrothes, Leslie, Leven, Wemyss, Markinch, Methil, Thornton, Buckhaven, Kennoway or Auchterderran and all the other parts of the Glenrothes constituency had better beware how they vote. A Nat vote will be as good a giving themselves a Tory and surely like all Scots the people in Glenrothes will remember just what that meant in the 80s and 90s under Thatcher and Major.

Therefore the people of Glenrothes who have been telling me that they cannae vote Labour and would nae vote Tory are left with only one alternative if they really don't want to do either, they really have to vote for Harry Wills as the only alternative to the disasters that they have faced since 1979.

*And knowing Andrew he wouldn't have blogged this without verifying his source.

The flaw in your plan is bigger than the Pacific. Voting for Harry Wills will not get him elected I'm afraid. All it will do is ensure than Labour keep another seat in Scotland - at least for one more year.

No Malc, the people of Glenrothes already don't like NuLabour, can't stand the Conservatives. And now with the emergence of the Scottish Conservative and Nationalist Party they really have only one option to send a message to the lot of them.

Watch out for the 6th of November after this gunpowder, treason and plot.

You see confining me to a one word answer is too limiting Jeff. Also means I could asnwer Scottish Nationalist Party as I'm sure you are aware that SNP isn't actually a word.

Anyway it's not who I'd like to see win the seat that is important is is how the people of Glenrothes want to be represented.

Either by :a) the party that ignored and exprimented with them from 1979-97.b) the party that's lied to them and fleeced them for stealth taxes etc since 1997c) the party that now is in bed with aord) the Liberal Democrats

To make themselves a serious force in Scottish politics the Lib Dems need to find a way to distance themselves in the eyes of the electorate from the Labour party.Pathetic attempts to conjure up Labour's decades-old bogeyman about 'letting the Tories in by the back door' are unlikely to help.

But Agentmancuso it appears that the Tories are the Scottish Conservative and Nationalist Party. I notice you failed to distance the Nats from the Tories all the Maggie love from Gordon and Alex was bound to blow up eventually.

The Tories have not changed their hearts that much, they are talking a talk, failing to walk and as of yet we have yet to see any seismic policy shift actually concreted up.

I have no interest in 'distancing' the SNP from the Tories, because my concern is with politics, not playground posturing.

I'd rather politicians were judged on their voting record, rather than on who they talked too. For example the nine Lib Dems MSPs who voted with both Labour and the Tories to let Ms Alexander get away with breaking the law.

Agent M the only candidate in the by election with any voting record would be MR Grant through his time on Fife council.

As for the Alexander decision the way the vote was split shows what a fudge that particular part of oversight in Holyrood was and I trust that it is something that is corrected and clarified.

However, with the evidence presented by all sides it went to a vote among the MSPs (a Jury as it were) and there would appear to ahve been doubt just who was to blame which lead to some voting as their consience dictacted unlike the whipped Nats in that vote as well as in committee.

Seems to me that the only beneficiary of such a pact would be the Conservatives, who could claim to be participants in a Machiavellian ploy rather than simply no-hopers in Glenrothes.

The battle would possibly be more interesting if it were in in North East Fife, Ming Campbell's seat, a rural area which is quite conservative - in fact Ming Campbell seems more like a Tory grandee than a Lib Dem sometimes.

However, the battle is in Glenrothes and it is a straight Labour-SNP fight: the Tories are nowhere and I don't think there is much of a Lib Dem tradition here.

Well, sorry for the delay, my overall point is this: irrespective of what conversations may or may not have taken place, the constituents only have 2 choices on 6th of Nov, Labour or the triple-worded SNP.

To dress the contest up as anything other than a 2-horse race is disengenous at best and frighteningly naive at worst.

I mean, good luck in beating the Tories and all that, but surely you have a preference between one of the eventual winners, Labour or the SNP?

Actually Jeff I'd hardly call it frighteningly naive. What is naive is the Nats cosying up to the Tories and hoping that nothing and nobody is going to find out the depths of what is going on.

I do feel another post coming on looking a little bit more in depth at just what Jess the Dog has said above. I don't think mere participation in some Machiavellian ploy is all the Scottish Conservative and Nationist Party is interested in.

Watch this space...

but I know you will anyway.

As for your kind offer I will refuse on the greounds of naivity, there are still 4 weeks to polling day nothing is won yet. Indeed I was offered the same options up to when I got off my train at Inverkeithing (having had to work during polling day) in Dunfermline and West Fife. That was billed a two horse race by the Nats the whole way and we all know what happened then.

Lib Dem MSPs voted to let Ms Alexander off the hook because they were told to by the Labour-subservient hierarchy. 6 Lib Dem MSPs proved they do have a spine by ignoring this, like Hugh O'Donnell, who was then promptly sacked from the Standards Committee for his trouble.

Jess the dog - There is a massive tradition of voting Lib Dem in Fife, two MPS, two MSPs and the Councillors.

Yeah right! The Dunfermline West win by Willie Rennie was glorious and I was delighted at that.... Ming Campbell's principled stand on Iraq resonated with me. Other than that, it is really North East Fife, which likes to see itself as seperate from the rest of Fife. Most of the rest of Fife is SNP, following from the days when you would stick a red rosette on a dog and you know how it goes from there...although I accept that there may be more Lib Dem and even Tory support than before due to the overspill of housing from Edinburgh. I do wonder if the Lib Dems suffered a little from their role in the first Holyrood administration.

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